FIC: "Majority Rule", CSI, Nick Stokes/Bobby Dawson, OC
Title: Majority Rule
Author: hawkeyecat
Fandom and Pairing: CSI; Nick Stokes/Bobby Dawson
Rating: PG
Claim and Prompt: Pain; 015: Epiphany; table here
Word Count: 1,186
Warnings: Does insulting Bush count?
Notes: Not really beta-read, beyond Starr checking my dialogue.
Summary: The winning side isn’t always right.
“All’s I’m sayin’,” Uncle Bob continues, “is the winnin’ side ain’t always the right side.” Bobby barely suppresses a sigh-of all the relatives to be named after, why Uncle Bob? He catches an amused look from Nick as he tips his beer bottle back. Sure, Nick might be Texan, but he’s not hick.
“We’re not talking about poker anymore, are we?” Nick interjects, and Uncle Bob gives him an exasperated look.
“There’s no right and wrong in poker, ‘less someone was cheatin’. We’re talkin’ politics, boy. Where you been the last twenty minutes?”
“Lost, apparently.” He gives Uncle Bob a charming smile. “Since politics ain’t poker.”
“Damn straight,” Uncle Bob grumbles. He’s silent a moment, just long enough to grab another bottle of Bud from the cooler, and settles back on the worn vinyl chair. “Winnin’ side ain’t always the right side,” he repeats. “Take that situation in I-rack.” Just try telling this particular Georgian that it’s pronounced more like “Ir-ahk”. You’ll earn yourself a lecture on regional dialect.
“There’s no winning side in Iraq,” Bobby points out. “Least, nobody’s getting anything good out of it.” He rubs old Maggie’s head, and her tail thumps appreciatively on the porch.
“Don’t mean there’s no winnin’ side. Them terrorists-that’s the winnin’ side. But it sure as hell ain’t the right side. People gettin’ killed so they don’t have no dictator runnin’ their lives, killin’ their people-that’s not right. Neither are bombs in marketplaces. Killin’ children, there. And that’s the winnin’ side.” Uncle Bob stops talking long enough to take a long swallow from his beer.
Down on the patchy grass, another coonhound bays and takes off toward a tree. Bobby follows his run, turning to watch. “Get down, Winston,” he calls. “You never climb back down, and I’m not rescuing you tonight.” Damn dog’s probably going to get himself stuck anyway, and the raccoon’s going to just change trees. If there even is a raccoon.
“Then we got this situation here, where the winnin’ side is the majority.” Uncle Bob apparently isn’t interested in the fate of the treed dog. “And the principle behind the law is clear-majority rule, minority rights. Only the minority,” he gestures to Nick and Bobby with his bottle, “ain’t gettin’ no rights.”
Bobby’s content to leave that in silence for a moment, and Nick apparently agrees. It’s a still, humid night, full of the promise of rain but not delivering. There’s the sound of bugs buzzing and chirping out in the surrounding woods, and stupid Winston whining from where he’s stuck in that old oak. Nick gets up from where he’s been sitting against a fencepost, a move Bobby has to admire for the easy grace and play of muscles under his cutoffs. No shirt-too damn hot. “I’ll get Winston.”
“He likes to claw ya.” Bobby winces inwardly at the backwoods showing. “Be careful. He’ll cling.”
“I’ve had dogs before. Got one now, remember?” Nick carefully lifts Winston from the fork of the tree, earning paws digging into his shoulders for the effort, and he ends up in the dirt when Winston pulls him down. Then Winston barks and licks Nick’s face, and by the time he’s back to the porch, the dog’s knocked him over two more times and licked him thoroughly.
“He’d’ve gotten down,” Uncle Bob says. “Or I’d be short one dumber’n mule shit hound.” He nudges Maggie with his toe. “Your fault I got him, girl. Couldn’t’ve thrown a decent hunter?”
“You know, Grace is lonely during the day,” Nick begins, and Bobby gives him a look.
“Winston would end up stuck on the roof.”
Nick shrugs. “Couple times. He’ll figure it out.”
“Boy, you want that dog-you can train that dog-he’s yours. Actually, majority’s lookin’ to prevent y’all from havin’ rights. Violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, right there. Segregation of what y’all are entitled to-this civil union and domestic partnership shit instead of simple marriage. That got struck down back in 1952. Brown v. Board of Education. Supreme Court’s call. Got case law and the Constitution backin’ you up. People just gotta take off their blinders and see it.” Uncle Bob sits his bottle down hard enough that the porch vibrates.
Nick glances down at the bottle, then up at Uncle Bob. “What’s got you so up in arms about this?”
Obviously, Nick doesn’t know Uncle Bob too well. “My first wife, God rest her soul, she was a black woman. Y’all are fightin’ to have that. It’s not gonna be easy once you got it-sure as shit wasn’t when we were able to get married. Cuz back then, what they’re callin’ interracial marriage now was miscegenation, an’ it wasn’t legal in a lot of states. Federal government was on our side that time, but you got a lot harder fight’n we did.” He spits over the side of the porch. “Thanks to that halfwit, backwoods-bred monkey an’ his Defense of Marriage Act. What I wanna know is, what’s the threat to marriage by makin’ it open to more people.”
“You’re not like this when you teach, are you?” Bobby asks. He can almost imagine Uncle Bob raving in front of one of his upper-level political science classes, just like this.
Uncle Bob shrugs. “Take out the beer and spit, clean up the grammar some, ya got me. Writin’s less like this. All annotated and scholarly.”
Nick grins up at Uncle Bob. “I could have used you when I was in college. Most of my political science professors toed the party line."
That earns a snort. “That’s not teachin’. It’s recruitment. Gotta be honest with the kids, let them make up their own minds.” He shoves himself up from his chair, groaning. “This old man has a class in the mornin’. You boys sleepin’ on the back porch?”
Nick glances over at Bobby and shrugs. “Probably cooler than the living room.”
Bobby shrugs back. “We can lay out a sleeping bag. End up with splinters otherwise.” He’s done this before.
“You know where everythin’ is.” Uncle Bob stretches, his back popping audibly. “See y’all for breakfast.”
Bobby and Nick stop in the living room to kiss Katie’s forehead, draping a light sheet over their little girl. She’s wearing one of Nick’s shirts, and they don’t want her to get chilled if it somehow cools off. It’s only when they’re spreading out the sleeping bag that Nick speaks. “Think it’ll be as bad as he says?”
Bobby shrugs. “Could be. Least down here. Vegas, no one cares.”
Nick stretches out on the porch. “Good thing we’re not living down here.”
Bobby eases down beside him, tangling their legs together. Too damn hot for anything else. “Yeah, but anywhere else, could be the same.”
Nick shrugs. “Could be. But it probably isn’t.”
“Nicky, we can’t get married at home,” Bobby points out. “Can’t get married anywhere except a couple of states, and nowhere else recognizes it. We can’t even have a domestic partnership.”
Nick’s quiet for a long moment. “Yeah,” he says at last. “Your uncle’s right. None of it’s right.”
Author: hawkeyecat
Fandom and Pairing: CSI; Nick Stokes/Bobby Dawson
Rating: PG
Claim and Prompt: Pain; 015: Epiphany; table here
Word Count: 1,186
Warnings: Does insulting Bush count?
Notes: Not really beta-read, beyond Starr checking my dialogue.
Summary: The winning side isn’t always right.
“All’s I’m sayin’,” Uncle Bob continues, “is the winnin’ side ain’t always the right side.” Bobby barely suppresses a sigh-of all the relatives to be named after, why Uncle Bob? He catches an amused look from Nick as he tips his beer bottle back. Sure, Nick might be Texan, but he’s not hick.
“We’re not talking about poker anymore, are we?” Nick interjects, and Uncle Bob gives him an exasperated look.
“There’s no right and wrong in poker, ‘less someone was cheatin’. We’re talkin’ politics, boy. Where you been the last twenty minutes?”
“Lost, apparently.” He gives Uncle Bob a charming smile. “Since politics ain’t poker.”
“Damn straight,” Uncle Bob grumbles. He’s silent a moment, just long enough to grab another bottle of Bud from the cooler, and settles back on the worn vinyl chair. “Winnin’ side ain’t always the right side,” he repeats. “Take that situation in I-rack.” Just try telling this particular Georgian that it’s pronounced more like “Ir-ahk”. You’ll earn yourself a lecture on regional dialect.
“There’s no winning side in Iraq,” Bobby points out. “Least, nobody’s getting anything good out of it.” He rubs old Maggie’s head, and her tail thumps appreciatively on the porch.
“Don’t mean there’s no winnin’ side. Them terrorists-that’s the winnin’ side. But it sure as hell ain’t the right side. People gettin’ killed so they don’t have no dictator runnin’ their lives, killin’ their people-that’s not right. Neither are bombs in marketplaces. Killin’ children, there. And that’s the winnin’ side.” Uncle Bob stops talking long enough to take a long swallow from his beer.
Down on the patchy grass, another coonhound bays and takes off toward a tree. Bobby follows his run, turning to watch. “Get down, Winston,” he calls. “You never climb back down, and I’m not rescuing you tonight.” Damn dog’s probably going to get himself stuck anyway, and the raccoon’s going to just change trees. If there even is a raccoon.
“Then we got this situation here, where the winnin’ side is the majority.” Uncle Bob apparently isn’t interested in the fate of the treed dog. “And the principle behind the law is clear-majority rule, minority rights. Only the minority,” he gestures to Nick and Bobby with his bottle, “ain’t gettin’ no rights.”
Bobby’s content to leave that in silence for a moment, and Nick apparently agrees. It’s a still, humid night, full of the promise of rain but not delivering. There’s the sound of bugs buzzing and chirping out in the surrounding woods, and stupid Winston whining from where he’s stuck in that old oak. Nick gets up from where he’s been sitting against a fencepost, a move Bobby has to admire for the easy grace and play of muscles under his cutoffs. No shirt-too damn hot. “I’ll get Winston.”
“He likes to claw ya.” Bobby winces inwardly at the backwoods showing. “Be careful. He’ll cling.”
“I’ve had dogs before. Got one now, remember?” Nick carefully lifts Winston from the fork of the tree, earning paws digging into his shoulders for the effort, and he ends up in the dirt when Winston pulls him down. Then Winston barks and licks Nick’s face, and by the time he’s back to the porch, the dog’s knocked him over two more times and licked him thoroughly.
“He’d’ve gotten down,” Uncle Bob says. “Or I’d be short one dumber’n mule shit hound.” He nudges Maggie with his toe. “Your fault I got him, girl. Couldn’t’ve thrown a decent hunter?”
“You know, Grace is lonely during the day,” Nick begins, and Bobby gives him a look.
“Winston would end up stuck on the roof.”
Nick shrugs. “Couple times. He’ll figure it out.”
“Boy, you want that dog-you can train that dog-he’s yours. Actually, majority’s lookin’ to prevent y’all from havin’ rights. Violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, right there. Segregation of what y’all are entitled to-this civil union and domestic partnership shit instead of simple marriage. That got struck down back in 1952. Brown v. Board of Education. Supreme Court’s call. Got case law and the Constitution backin’ you up. People just gotta take off their blinders and see it.” Uncle Bob sits his bottle down hard enough that the porch vibrates.
Nick glances down at the bottle, then up at Uncle Bob. “What’s got you so up in arms about this?”
Obviously, Nick doesn’t know Uncle Bob too well. “My first wife, God rest her soul, she was a black woman. Y’all are fightin’ to have that. It’s not gonna be easy once you got it-sure as shit wasn’t when we were able to get married. Cuz back then, what they’re callin’ interracial marriage now was miscegenation, an’ it wasn’t legal in a lot of states. Federal government was on our side that time, but you got a lot harder fight’n we did.” He spits over the side of the porch. “Thanks to that halfwit, backwoods-bred monkey an’ his Defense of Marriage Act. What I wanna know is, what’s the threat to marriage by makin’ it open to more people.”
“You’re not like this when you teach, are you?” Bobby asks. He can almost imagine Uncle Bob raving in front of one of his upper-level political science classes, just like this.
Uncle Bob shrugs. “Take out the beer and spit, clean up the grammar some, ya got me. Writin’s less like this. All annotated and scholarly.”
Nick grins up at Uncle Bob. “I could have used you when I was in college. Most of my political science professors toed the party line."
That earns a snort. “That’s not teachin’. It’s recruitment. Gotta be honest with the kids, let them make up their own minds.” He shoves himself up from his chair, groaning. “This old man has a class in the mornin’. You boys sleepin’ on the back porch?”
Nick glances over at Bobby and shrugs. “Probably cooler than the living room.”
Bobby shrugs back. “We can lay out a sleeping bag. End up with splinters otherwise.” He’s done this before.
“You know where everythin’ is.” Uncle Bob stretches, his back popping audibly. “See y’all for breakfast.”
Bobby and Nick stop in the living room to kiss Katie’s forehead, draping a light sheet over their little girl. She’s wearing one of Nick’s shirts, and they don’t want her to get chilled if it somehow cools off. It’s only when they’re spreading out the sleeping bag that Nick speaks. “Think it’ll be as bad as he says?”
Bobby shrugs. “Could be. Least down here. Vegas, no one cares.”
Nick stretches out on the porch. “Good thing we’re not living down here.”
Bobby eases down beside him, tangling their legs together. Too damn hot for anything else. “Yeah, but anywhere else, could be the same.”
Nick shrugs. “Could be. But it probably isn’t.”
“Nicky, we can’t get married at home,” Bobby points out. “Can’t get married anywhere except a couple of states, and nowhere else recognizes it. We can’t even have a domestic partnership.”
Nick’s quiet for a long moment. “Yeah,” he says at last. “Your uncle’s right. None of it’s right.”